January 2025

Upcoming NCCOR Webinar Highlights the Impact of Weight Stigma and Bias on Youth

NCCOR, January 2025

Join NCCOR on January 27, 2025, from 1:00–2:00 p.m. ET for the next Connect & Explore webinar titled “Understanding Weight Stigma: Impacts on Families and Youth.” Weight stigma refers to the societal devaluation of people based on their body weight or body size. While children and youth may experience weight stigma from peers, teachers, and health care providers, research shows that parents can be a primary source of weight bias for children with obesity. 

During this 1-hour webinar, experts will discuss the psychosocial and health impacts of weight stigma and bias on children and adolescents, with a focus on how familial interaction and communication influence these outcomes. Presentations will highlight recent research on the relevance of weight bias to public health, the role of parent-child conversations about weight, and broader mental health implications for youth. This webinar will feature the following speakers:  

• Laurie Friedman Donze, PhD, Division of Cardiovascular Sciences, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, NIH
• Rebecca Puhl, PhD, MS, Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health, University of Connecticut 
• Katherine Rancaño, PhD, MS, RAND Corporation 

Registration for the webinar is free, but space is limited, so register early to secure a spot. Please consider sharing this information on your social networks using the hashtag #ConnectExplore. We will live-tweet the webinar, so follow the conversation at @NCCOR. The webinar will be recorded and archived on www.nccor.org for those unable to attend.   

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NCCOR Toolbox: Kickstart Your Research in 2025 with NCCOR’s Catalogue of Surveillance Systems

January 2025, NCCOR

Start the new year by exploring the Catalogue of Surveillance Systems (CSS), a powerful tool from NCCOR designed to enhance research on nutrition, physical activity, and obesity. With access to over 100 datasets, including new additions like the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos and the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, the CSS is an invaluable resource for investigating health disparities and systemic factors shaping public health. January is the perfect time to dive into this comprehensive resource, uncover fresh insights, and set the stage for impactful research throughout the year.

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New Report Highlights Two Decades of Progress and Challenges in Tackling Childhood Obesity

January 2025, NCCOR

Robert Wood Johnson’s 2024 Annual Report on the State of Childhood Obesity highlights progress and ongoing challenges in combating childhood obesity over two decades. It details advancements in nutrition policies, community-led initiatives improving food access, and efforts to promote equity through data and policy. The report reflects on federal, state, and local successes, while emphasizing the importance of addressing systemic barriers to health equity. It also includes stories of community resilience and policy innovations. For more details, view the report here.

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Announcing the NOPREN Special Collection

December 2024, University of California San Francisco

The NOPREN Special Collections features peer-reviewed publications authored by NOPREN members in 2020-2023. This curated collection showcases the impact of NOPREN’s collaborative research and evaluation activities. It spotlights the many ways in which NOPREN member’s research has informed nutrition policy and practice at the national, state, and local levels. Included in the collection are articles on early childhood, drinking water access, federal nutrition assistance programs, rural food access, and pediatric obesity.

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Scientific Report of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee

December 2024, U.S. Department of Agriculture

The Scientific Report of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (Scientific Report) has been submitted to the Secretaries of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and is now available online. The departments have opened a 60-day comment period to collect input from the public on the Scientific Report. The comments received will be used to inform the development of the next edition of the Dietary Guidelines. Additional information on submitting public comments can be found on the Get Involved page.

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USDA Delivers on Promise to Expand Access to Nutrition Resources in Underserved Communities by Funding Three New Nutrition Hubs

December 19, 2024, U.S. Department of Agriculture

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced a $4.5 million investment to create three additional USDA Nutrition Hubs. The hubs will support effective, translatable and scalable approaches to advance food and nutrition security and reduce the burden of diet-related chronic diseases, especially in underserved, at-risk communities.

“Nutrition security means everyone has consistent and equitable access to healthy, safe, affordable foods essential to optimal health and well-being,” said Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. “Ensuring nutrition security for all has been a cornerstone priority for the Biden-Harris Administration, and these new Nutrition Hubs will pave the way for even greater strides toward achieving that goal.”

The addition of these three Hubs creates a network that builds on the pilot Nutrition Hub established last year in partnership with Southern University and A&M College under USDA’s Agricultural Science Center of Excellence for Nutrition and Diet for Better Health (ASCEND for Better Health) initiative.

Funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, along with support from the USDA Agricultural Research Service, the Nutrition Hub network will complement and increase the impact of USDA’s collective contributions to the Extension, education and research communities and underserved communities at large through the lens of precision nutrition.

Precision nutrition is a tailored approach to diet guidance based on individual subpopulations’ unique characteristics, which include dietary intake and food composition, genetics, socioeconomic and psychosocial characteristics, food environments, cultural factors, physical activity and health status.

The Nutrition Hubs will be located at three Land-grant Universities: University of Hawaii, Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Utah State University.

“USDA’s Land-grant University partners are the perfect place to house these three new Nutrition Hubs because of the experience they have building their communities through education and Extension outreach programming,” said Dr. Chavonda Jacobs-Young, Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics and USDA’s Chief Scientist. “Their goal will be to better understand the real-world opportunities and challenges around food, nutrition and diet-related health disparities, and to develop coordinated science-based solutions and resources for their populations.”

Among the goals of the Nutrition Hubs is to stimulate and catalyze cross-cutting and interdisciplinary work among scientists and stakeholders, using highly interdisciplinary approaches and human-centered program designs.

The Pacific Nutrition Hub, located at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, will enhance nutrition capacity in the U.S. Affiliated Pacific Region through data-driven strategies and professional trainings tailored for the area’s Native populations that are culturally and biologically distinct with Native languages and customs.

The Healthy Living for Hispanic Communities USDA Nutrition Hub at the Texas A&M Institute for Advancing Health through Agriculture will improve food and nutrition security, reduce diet-related disparities and improve population health in Hispanic communities.

Utah State University’s Western Region Nutrition Security Collaborative will foster interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration to address barriers such as structural inequalities and improve equitable access to health-promoting foods.

USDA touches the lives of all Americans each day in so many positive ways. Under the Biden-Harris administration, USDA is transforming America’s food system with a greater focus on more resilient local and regional food production, fairer markets for all producers, ensuring access to safe, healthy and nutritious food in all communities, building new markets and streams of income for farmers and producers using climate smart food and forestry practices, making historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy capabilities in rural America, and committed to equity across the Department by removing systemic barriers and building a workforce more representative of America. To learn more, visit www.usda.gov.

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Study Reveals the Positive Link Between Home Kitchens and Adolescents’ Health

December 18, 2024, EurekAlert!

A recent study in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, published by Elsevier, highlights the significant influence of the home food environment on adolescent dietary patterns compared to neighborhood food options. This cross-sectional research study investigates the roles of home and neighborhood food environments like fast-food and convenience stores in shaping dietary behaviors among adolescents, offering valuable insights for addressing adolescent obesity.

The study’s findings emphasize that home food availability, particularly of fruits and vegetables, plays a pivotal role in influencing healthier eating habits both by promoting consumption of healthful foods and reducing the intake of energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods. By contrast, neighborhood factors such as fast-food availability negatively affected the quality of adolescent dietary intake, suggesting that interventions aimed at modifying the home environment, rather than the neighborhood environment, may have a greater impact on improving adolescent health.

The researchers analyzed data from 204 adolescents in Nebraska collected from a combination of validated questionnaires, geographic information systems (GIS), and dietary recalls to examine food availability at home, the number of fast-food and convenience retailers in the neighborhood environment, and dietary quality and behaviors. The study employed advanced hierarchical regression analyses to identify the unique contributions of home and neighborhood food environments to adolescent dietary outcomes. Data collection included both in-laboratory assessments and follow-up dietary recalls, ensuring a comprehensive evaluation of adolescent eating patterns across different contexts.

Key findings reveal that home availability of fruits and vegetables positively predicts healthier eating habits, including higher Healthy Eating Index scores, greater intake of fruits and vegetables, and reduced intake of fast food. In contrast, greater availability of fats and sweets at home correlates with increased consumption of sugary and highly processed snack foods. Notably, neighborhood convenience store counts showed a surprising association with greater nutrient-dense food consumption, and fast-food counts were linked to higher adolescent sugary beverage intake.

Lead author Saira Sarwar, MA, Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, explains, “These findings underscore the importance of targeting the home food environment as a modifiable factor in dietary interventions for adolescents.”

The study’s implications suggest that interventions focusing on enhancing home availability of healthier foods may be more effective than those solely addressing neighborhood food options. Future research is needed to confirm these results and explore how these environments can be modified to combat adolescent obesity.

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Children’s Healthy Living Project Growing Nutrition Professionals Across the Pacific

December 17, 2024, U.S. Department of Agriculture

In 2010, the Pacific Islands Health Officers Association declared a regional state of health emergency due to the epidemic of noncommunicable diseases in the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands. This declaration led to eight Land-grant Colleges and Universities across the region joining forces to prevent childhood obesity and promote better health.

That’s how the Children’s Healthy Living (CHL) project came to life, led by the University of Hawaii at Manoa. With funding from NIFA’s Agricultural and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program, the Children’s Healthy Living Center of Excellence (CHL Center) was born. The Center reaches an underserved rural population that is among the highest risk in the world for obesity. The region includes Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia (Kosrae State, Yap State, Pohnpei State, Chuuk State), the Republics of the Marshall Islands and Palau.

The CHL team recognized combating childhood obesity would require enhancing the region’s professional capacity through training and education.

CHL Director Dr. Rachel Novotny said the sheer size of the region presented challenges in addressing that workforce development need.

“Our partners are all across the Pacific,” said Novotny, who is also a professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “The region spans seven time zones, and our closest partner is a more than six-hour plane ride.’

CHL has worked alongside more than 100 community partners across the Pacific Region.

“The program was designed to be interpreted locally,” Novotny said. “That built momentum and helped to begin to address the need for trained professionals. As we selected trainees, we showed our intent to develop people across the region.”

CHL Assistant Director Dr. Ashley Yamanaka agreed that the importance of the training being available locally cannot be underestimated.

“It’s important to be able to keep talented individuals in their home communities, and CHL is making that possible,” Yamanaka said. “Local training increases the likelihood of individuals staying in the area. The program equips trainees to take on leadership roles and drive initiatives within their communities.”

CHL is delivering on its mission to increase the number of professionals in the Pacific region who are trained to address childhood obesity. Over the lifetime of CHL, about 100 new professionals have been trained.

Training the Next Generation

• Associate’s degree: 8
• Bachelor’s degree: 19
• Master’s degree: 12
• Doctorate degree: 13
• Postdoctoral Fellows: 2
• Trained Leaders: 54

“The number of CHL trainees is impressive, and it’s only the foundation,” said Mallory M. Koenings, NIFA national program leader. “The impact of CHL trainees is beyond the numbers. Individual trainees have inspired and trained additional students, professionals and leaders in their communities.”

“Participants are more than trainees,” Novotny said. “They are asked to be part of the research CHL is conducting and to help interpret data.”

Participants also designed and conducted a CHL project that supported childhood obesity prevention in their home jurisdiction. For graduate students, CHL projects served as the students’ theses/dissertations. For undergraduate students, depending on the degree program, the CHL project was integrated within an applied learning experience.

Dr. Aifili Tufa earned his doctorate in epidemiology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He calls his participation in the CHL program “transformative.”

“My completed Ph.D. and defended dissertation have provided me with the confidence to excel in my positions with the American Samoa Department of Health and make a positive impact on the health and well-being of the American Samoa community,” Tufa said.

“CHL community leaders will be promoting nutrition and health, preventing diet-related diseases and disparities and having a lasting positive impact on the next generation,” Koenings said.

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How Providers and Practitioners Can Reduce Children’s Exposure to Unhealthy Food Marketing

December 12, 2024, Healthy Eating Research

Unhealthy food marketing contributes to global health issues such as childhood obesity, poor nutrition, and diet-related diseases, making it crucial for professionals who work with children to understand and address its impact. Food and beverage companies often target children with high-sugar, high-fat products across digital platforms, such as social media, gaming sites, and video streaming. This environment influences children’s preferences and eating behaviors, normalizing unhealthy food choices and reinforcing health disparities, particularly among Black and Latino youth.

Recognizing the importance of this issue, Healthy Eating Research convened an expert panel to review existing evidence and develop recommendations to mitigate harms from digital food marketing to children ages 2-17. These recommendations were published in October 2024.

The recommendations aim to protect children from harmful digital marketing by addressing industry-led, school-based, social environment, other physical food environment, and government policies. In addition, practitioners, educators, school administrators, and other community leaders who interact with children can play a role in reducing exposure to harmful advertising and promoting healthy food choices, which can create lasting, positive changes for children’s health.

What can providers and educators do to protect kids from digital food marketing?

The influence of digital food marketing on children’s health is widespread. At the same time, educators, healthcare providers, and community leaders have the ability to mitigate its impact by advocating for policies, encouraging healthy habits, and promoting digital boundaries among children. The following are targeted actions that schools, healthcare providers, and community groups or leaders can take to protect children from the influence of unhealthy food marketing:

School Administrators

Schools play a critical role in shaping children’s digital environments and can implement effective policies to reduce exposure to harmful food marketing. Administrators can take proactive steps by establishing school-wide guidelines that prioritize student privacy and limit digital advertising on school-issued devices and networks. Specifically, schools should:

• Install ad-blocking technology and filters to prevent exposure to unhealthy food marketing;
• Adopt strong privacy policies that protect and control student data usage, preventing companies from collecting, sharing, and selling online student data except for essential educational purposes;
• Include provisions in school wellness policies that clearly state that digital instructional materials should be free from unhealthy food marketing; and
• Partner with privacy-compliant edtech by purchasing digital tools and services only from companies that adhere to privacy by design and offer ad-blocking and filtering features.

Additionally, schools can join initiatives such as the Phone-Free Schools Movement and task their School Wellness Committees with promoting healthier, screen-free interactions among students. Through collaboration with local school boards and district leaders, administrators can also advocate for district-wide digital privacy standards that protect children’s health and limit exposure to unhealthy food marketing. For more resources, schools can refer to organizations like Fairplay to find advocacy tools and best practices for creating safe digital spaces for students.

Healthcare Providers

Healthcare providers can be trusted advisors, guiding parents on the health dangers of excessive screen time and exposure to digital food marketing. Providers can educate parents on how exposure to online ads for sugary snacks, fast food, and sugary drinks contributes to unhealthy dietary choices, weight gain, and long-term health risks, such as obesity and diabetes. Educating parents about these risks empowers them to take action to protect children’s health.

Healthcare providers can also encourage parents to set digital boundaries at home, such as creating device-free zones during meals and limiting non-essential screen time. Additional materials should be available in the clinic that show parents how to adjust privacy settings, disable data tracking, and choose ad-free content to minimize children’s exposure to targeted food marketing.

By equipping parents with these insights and tools, healthcare providers can foster healthier environments that protect children from the influence of digital food marketing and encourage long-term healthy habits.

Community Organizations (e.g., sports teams, clubs, churches)

Community organizations have a unique opportunity to create healthy environments. One solution that community organizations can adopt is to limit digital communication with children. Coaches, club leaders, and youth group organizers can encourage communication via email rather than social media to reduce children’s exposure to online advertising. Due to the pervasiveness of digital food marketing, any engagement with social media may increase the exposure to and harm caused by digital food marketing. Additionally, these groups can establish guidelines for device use, such as no phones during practice, meetings, or events.

By fostering a culture that values face-to-face interaction and reducing digital exposure, community organizations can contribute to creating a healthier social environment for children.

Where can I learn more?

Visit HER’s website for the complete recommendations and a fact sheet for parents and caregivers.

Learn more about the recommendations in our upcoming webinar: Register here.

Additional resources can be found here:

• Screens in Schools Action Kit by Fairplay
• Privacy evaluations of educational technology products by Common Sense Media
• Phone Free Schools Movement
• Raising Children Network. Advertising: How it influences children and teenagers
• National Education Policy Center. Don’t Go “Along with Corporate Schemes to Gather up Student Data

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USDA Announces Availability of $1.13 Billion for Local Food Programs

December 10, 2024, U.S. Department of Agriculture

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced a $1.13 billion investment to support local and regional food systems, building upon the Department’s previous investments in the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement (LFPA) and Local Food for Schools (LFS) programs.

This round of funding, announced on October 1, will allow states, territories, and federally recognized Tribes to purchase wholesome, locally produced foods for distribution within their communities to emergency food providers, schools, and child care centers. Those interested in applying for this round of LFS, which now includes funding for child care centers, can visit the LFS website. Those wishing to participate in this round of LFPA can visit the LFPA website. Producers wishing to receive information about becoming a vendor for LFPA or for LFS should contact their respective state, territory, or Tribal purchasing authorities.

“These programs expand on the prior achievements of USDA’s LFPA and LFS programs and carry them into 2025, assuring local farmers, families, and communities that they will continue to get the help they need,” said USDA Under Secretary Jenny Lester Moffitt. “The programs reaffirm our commitment to bolstering local economies, ensuring food security, and fostering resilient agricultural communities nationwide.”

“USDA believes that a healthier future for our country starts with our children,” said Cindy Long, USDA’s Deputy Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services. “We are excited to build on these successful collaborations that connect schools and emergency food organizations with nutritious food from local farmers and producers by expanding the model to child care facilities for the first time. Families can feel good knowing their kids are eating food that was grown right in their own community.”

USDA will allocate up to $471.5 million for states and territories to purchase local, unprocessed, or minimally processed domestic foods for use by schools participating in the National School Lunch and/or School Breakfast Programs, and up to $188.6 million for use in child care facilities participating in the Child and Adult Care Food Program. Additionally, USDA will allocate up to $471.5 million for states, territories, and Tribal governments to use in local feeding programs, including food banks, schools and other organizations that reach underserved communities. Of that, $100 million will go to Tribal governments.

Conceived in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the LFPA, LFPA Plus, and LFS programs have invested over $1 billion into local food purchases to date. Through the LFPA programs, USDA has provided $900 million in funding to 50 states, the District of Columbia, four territories, and 84 Tribal governments, sourcing foods from over 8,000 local producers, with more than 5,000 identified as underserved. This wholesome food has gone to 7,900 food banks, food pantries, and communities across America. Additionally, LFS has awarded up to $200 million for states and territories to purchase domestic, local foods for use in their National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. These collaborations between the states, school systems, and local producers have established many new supply-chain partnerships, and enabled states to re-envision the school meal and what it can do for both students and local, small, and underserved farmers. Together, the LFPA and LFS programs have strengthened food systems, expanded local and regional markets, and are helping to build a fair, competitive, and resilient food supply chain.

Today’s notice of funding will continue this vital work and provide an additional $1.13 billion to support local agriculture, schools, and feeding programs.

USDA touches the lives of all Americans each day in so many positive ways. In the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA is transforming America’s food system with a greater focus on more resilient local and regional food production, fairer markets for all producers, ensuring access to safe, healthy and nutritious food in all communities, building new markets and streams of income for farmers and producers using climate smart food and forestry practices, making historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy capabilities in rural America, and committing to equity across the Department by removing systemic barriers and building a workforce more representative of America. To learn more, visit www.usda.gov.

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